Futuremark, arbiter of all synthetic benchmarks that upend message boards and LAN party envies around the globe, is ready to make you feel bad about your rig all over again: 3DMark for Windows 8. But there's a twist!

Since Windows 8 wants to french kiss both tablets and traditional computers, the new 3DMark (landing next year) will support both x86 and ARM rigs. That means everything from your next skinny (Windows 8) tablet to the 16-core trillion dollar, water-cooled gaming machine of your dreams will be in the same arena. No word yet on what kind of eye candy 3DMark Win8 will push when it arrives, but if history is any guide, it'll probably be demos of steampunk elephants falling out of the sky into a nuclear reactor and robot princesses slap-fighting in a snowstorm. In real time. [Futuremark via MaxPC]

Note: Instead of a screenshot, Futuremark released the above drawing of some sort of flaming rock warrior brandishing two swords in the name of synthetic benchmarking. I guess it's mean to make you feel as awesome as you're going to feel while benchmarking your Windows 8 computer. That guy is totally going to cut you up good.